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I am about to move away from Fedora because of their end-of-life policy. Although I reviewed the proposed similar questions, I am confused about whether Unix SE is an appropriate forum for my inquiry. On the one hand, I do plan to be very specific about my experience and what I am looking for in OS support from the pertinent forums. On the other hand, I will be asking for opinions rather than technical analysis.

If this is not the right forum for such a linux-generic opinion-question, can anyone suggest an alternate website? If such a query is acceptable at Unix SE, should it include a specific tag or include specific wording in the title?

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    I think the help center would say off-topic here: unix.stackexchange.com/help/dont-ask
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 14:37
  • @JeffSchaller Do you mean that the underlying question (i.e. unix os recommendation) is off-topic for Unix SE, or that this query is off-topic for Meta-Unix SE?
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 15:10
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    Sorry for the confusion; I think asking about the main site's topics & scope is on-topic here, but that opinion-based questions on the main site would be off-topic.
    – Jeff Schaller Mod
    Commented Nov 14, 2018 at 20:57
  • I believe you could make your question on-topic if you come up with a very specific criterion of a certain "killer feature" you want in your distro, e.g. "what modern Linux distributions have long-term support for longer than X years?" Although at that point a simple Google query would likely suffice to answer it.
    – undercat
    Commented Nov 16, 2018 at 18:12
  • @undercat Thanks, I do consider this issue tricky. I have decided to live with Fedora for another year and hope that frequent upgrades/re-installs stop being required. Ultimately, although I could provide specific details, what I am actually looking for is opinions rather than technical analysis. While the opinions of the UnixSE pro-s are valuable, a year from now I can probably elicit them from another site, if needed.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 17, 2018 at 23:07
  • Fedora won’t stop suggesting frequent updates; it’s a frequently-updated, fast-moving distribution. If you want a distribution with infrequent upgrades, you should look somewhere else. (Re-installs are another issue, Fedora shouldn’t require that at all.)
    – Stephen Kitt
    Commented Nov 19, 2018 at 13:28
  • @StephenKitt I consider Fedora's frequent updates good and Fedora's 13 month end-of-life policy bad. Further, I think the issue of re-install vs upgrade is very tricky. I recently did a full re-install (from Fedora 26) to Fedora 29. During this re-install, both VirtualBox and Sabnzbd needed special handling. I don't see how Fedora.Org developers can anticipate/test every potential special handling situation from 3rd party software. Given that I am an outside observer totally ignorant of the inner mechanics of a Fedora upgrade, I question how it handles special situations.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 19, 2018 at 13:53
  • You haven't mentioned anything about what you are looking for in a Linux Distrobution. What requirements do you have? If Fedora's length of support bothers you, maybe look into a Long Term Support distro like CentOS, or Ubuntu.
    – Timothy Pulliam
    Commented Nov 26, 2018 at 14:09
  • @TimothyPulliam "...maybe ...LTS...like...". Maybe. Since Cinnamon atop Fedora is stable, I am comfortable with Fedora and reluctant to change. Since Fedora is frequently updated, with rolling releases, it is clearly being robustly supported by the volunteer community of linux developers; this robustness also makes it attractive. Having just completely re-installed to Fedora 29, in 12 months, either Fedora will have changed its end-of-life policy, or I will have to experiment (for the first time) with upgrading from Fedora 29 to Fedora 30.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 26, 2018 at 14:32
  • @TimothyPulliam If no change to Fedora's end-of-life policy and I become unhappy with the upgrade process, then I will have to abandon ship. It would not be sensible to stay with a product that is forcing me to spend 8 hours re-installing once a year.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 26, 2018 at 14:34
  • So if I understand your comment about upgrading from Fedora 29 to 30, you’re annoyed because Fedora forces you to re-install every year, but you’ve never tried upgrading?
    – Stephen Kitt
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 6:46
  • @StephenKitt exactly, though I question the adjective annoyed. My internet research uncovered the upgrade problems of others; my impression was that in general, the user had done nothing wrong. Also, my intuition, based on my limited personal experience, is that fedora developers can not anticipate 3rd party software or hardware problems. By definition, a re-install is always more reliable than an upgrade. See next comment.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 23:38
  • @StephenKitt two examples: (1) see my nov 18, 2018 posting at nuxref.com/nuxref-repository. (2) Apparently, as of 2 weeks ago, VirtualBox did not yet have a Fedora 29 repo ready yet. Interesting that simultaneously, the Fedora 29 (full install) **involuntarily included two VirtualBox guest-addition pieces. This means that I am going to wait a couple of months for the VirtualBox Fedora 29 repo, and then post a query both on this forum and Fedora.org questioning whether I should first back out the pieces installed by Fedora 29. How could an upgrade handle sabnzbd &/or VB?
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 23:44

2 Answers 2

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I think this is off-topic on all technical SEs, for one simple reason: it’s not about a specific problem you encountered, it’s about a general problem you believe you may encounter.

There are questions related to your situation which would be appropriate on Unix.SE; for example

I tried to upgrade from Fedora Core 29 to Fedora Core 30 and ran into this specific problem (with details). How should I go about fixing it?

That would also be appropriate as a Fedora bug report, and I think it would be more useful as such.

But

I’m looking for recommendations of operating systems which are upgradable, because I believe I can’t upgrade from Fedora Core 29 to Fedora Core 30, and I’m fed up of re-installing.

isn’t appropriate, because it’s unanswerable: readers can’t guess what the actual concerns you’re trying to address are, so even if this weren’t opinion-based, answerers would have no way of knowing whether their recommendations meets your requirements (because they wouldn’t know why, in your specific circumstances, the upgrade might or might not fail, and therefore whether their recommendation would suffer from the same problem or not).

There is perhaps another variant which might suit your purposes better, and could be on-topic:

I read somewhere (with a link) that in these specific circumstances, upgrading from Fedora Core 22 to 23 fails. Is this still relevant for upgrades from Fedora Core 29 to 30, and if so, is there any way to work around it?

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There's a Software Recommendations StackExchange in beta right now. Maybe that would be the right place to ask.

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    I’m not sure; quoting the tour: “Good software recommendation requests have two components: a purpose (a task to accomplish, a user story) and some objective requirements (a minimum set of features). Please read our question quality guidelines before asking for a recommendation.” I don’t think this particular question meets the criteria.
    – Stephen Kitt
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 9:41
  • @StephenKitt Please consider that we have actually exceeded the boundaries of this meta-query; I intended only to ask whether the underlying subject was a fit topic for unixSE, not to discuss/debate the topic in unix.metaSE. My impression is that a good percent of the unixSE audience do not think this is a fit topic; I regard that reaction as very reasonable. Anyway, I have abandoned the topic for at least 12 months.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 28, 2018 at 23:49
  • @lsusr Thanks for your answer, which I upvoted. In this bizarre situation, I don't think that it is my place to accept or reject your answer.
    – user2661923
    Commented Nov 29, 2018 at 0:30
  • @user2661923 I wasn’t trying to discuss the topic here, I was trying to determine the real scope of your question.
    – Stephen Kitt
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 9:34

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